


At Least We're Going Down Together

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Play Along [9]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, M/M, band au, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7226386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, It started after John walked in on Rodney playing a piano so he joined in on his guitar - and it grew from there."</p><p>Evan Lorne witnesses Space Monkey musical magic - and drama.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Least We're Going Down Together

“Thank you,” Rodney said, accepting the Starbucks cup from Evan. He went to take a sip, paused, and squinted up at Evan. “Who are you and why are you giving me coffee? Is this poisoned?”  
  
“If it was poisoned,” Evan said, “I wouldn’t tell you. However, Mr. Woolsey did tell you, about three hours ago, that my name is Evan Lorne, and I’m your new PA.”  
  
“PA?” Rodney’s brow furrowed. No doubt he was thinking in terms of a public announcement system.  
  
“Personal assistant,” Evan said patiently. Ronon walked past and swiped his cup of coffee as he went, snagged Teyla’s as well and carried it across the photography studio.  
  
“But Woolsey -”  
  
“Is your agent, and Elizabeth Weir is your manager.” Evan smiled, and Rodney looked even more confused.  
  
A pair of photographer’s assistants wheeled an old upright piano, like the kind seen in a saloon in an old western film, onto the set. That made sense, Evan supposed, since the band - and Rodney, who everyone just seemed to agree was part of the band - was all dressed up as characters from a spaghetti western. Ronon was wearing copious amounts of leather and flannel, Teyla was wearing a long leather coat with a sheriff badge pinned to it, John was dressed like a civil war soldier, with a high collar and a cap, Jennifer was dressed like Annie Oakley, and Rodney was dressed like some frontier gentleman - or like Simon Tam from Firefly.  
  
The photographer - a harried Czech man named Radek - began shouting instructions to the assistants, and the assistants started herding the band onto the set (a wagon filled with hay, a little incongruous next to the piano), and then there was a humming and a pop and one of the flash bulbs exploded in a shower of glass. Radek began shouting in Czech, and there was a scramble to find a replacement bulb, and then a timid confession that no bulbs were to be found, and more shouting in Czech.  
  
John nudged Rodney, who sat down at the piano and hit a note, and John used it to tune the dusty old guitar he’d been given as a prop. While John was tuning, Rodney started to play a short chord progression, just three chords. John bobbed his head absently to the rhythm of the chords, and once his guitar was tuned, he joined in with an overlaying riff, playing quietly.  
  
It took Evan a moment to recognize the song, because he usually listened to the Nine Inch Nails version, but as soon as Ronon took up the lyrics, Evan knew it.  
  
 _I hurt myself today  
To see if I still feel._  
  
Teyla picked up on the harmony quickly, slid closer, and Jennifer joined in as well.  
  
No one noticed till John began strumming louder, building toward the chorus, and then heads turned. The assistants stopped their fussing and worrying.  
  
Evan got his phone out of his pocket and began recording, because this was magic. This was chemistry. This was five people so in tune with each other that they could make a song out of a couple of props. They’d never performed this song before, and Evan had gone to their shows long before he’d been assigned as their PA. He doubted Rodney and John remembered him in the back of their AP physics class.  
  
He’d check with Woolsey and Elizabeth before he leaked the video on YouTube, but in the meantime, he was fascinated, he was amazed, he was -  
  
Oh.  
  
 _Oh._  
  
Maybe he’d better keep this video for himself, because damn if John wasn’t looking at Rodney like he was the only person in the world. The light in John’s eyes, the curve of his lips - he was so damn happy. Rodney, though, he was darting smiles at Jennifer (of course he was, they were dating). Ronon and Teyla looked lost in the music. Evan had seen that smile on John’s face before. It was the smile the girls screamed over. It was why there wasn’t a Johnny Cash t-shirt to be found in town, or a pair of shades like the ones John wore. Girls were in love with that smile. And they thought John was in love with them right back, because he gave that smile to the crowd.  
  
Not the crowd.  
  
To Rodney, who was always at the back of the crowd, working the sound.

How had no one spotted this before?  
  
Rodney was oblivious. Of course he hadn’t spotted it.  
  
But then Teyla shifted into John’s line of sight, caught his eye, and he twined his voice with hers while Ronon mingled his voice with Jennifer’s, and Evan was glad Ronon and Teyla knew and were managing it.  
  
Radek’s camera whirred. He was snapping away, waving one hand wildly, and somehow his assistants knew where to position what working lights they had.  
  
When the song ended, everyone burst into applause, and the sheer joy on all the musicians’ faces made it hard to breathe.  
  
And then a man said, “You used to play that song all the time after your mother died.”  
  
John spun around, eyes wide.  
  
The man standing in the doorway looked nothing like John Sheppard except for his dark hair. However, he did look remarkably like Patrick Sheppard, who’d been on the cover of Fortune 500 Magazine last week. The young man beside him looked like a younger version of him.  
  
“Dad,” John said.  
  
“I told you,” Patrick Sheppard quietly, “to put your childhood dreams away.”  
  
His voice was thunder-loud in the sudden hush that had fallen over the studio.  
  
“You’re supposed to be working for me.”  
  
“Today is my day off,” John said.  
  
Patrick said, “David told me the truth about your so-called girlfriend. Meredith. That was a clever trick. You were telling me the truth, of a sort. Meredith. Blond. Brilliant. Double-majoring in physics and engineering. Except _he_ withdrew, didn’t he? As did you, and the rest of your friends. It’s a mistake, John. And it was a bigger mistake, to ask your brother to lie for you.”  
  
John shot Dave a look, and Dave dipped his chin, gaze shuttered. Something unspoken passed between them.  
  
“Either come home now,” Patrick Sheppard said, “or don’t come home at all.” He held out a hand.  
  
John swallowed hard, and his grip on the neck of the guitar turned white-knuckled, but he lowered his hand to his side and lifted his chin.  
  
Dave said, “You have twenty-four hours to clean out your room at the apartment.”  
  
“And forty-eight to clean out your room at the house,” Patrick added. He turned and walked away, and Dave followed.  
  
In their absence, silence reigned.  
  
“John,” Teyla began, but John crossed the studio to Evan.   
  
“I need -”  
  
“I’ll arrange for boxes and movers,” Evan said, already unlocking his phone.  
  
“Thanks,” John said tightly. “I just -”  
  
“You can stay with me and Grandfather,” Ronon said. John nodded.  
  
“Thanks. Can I have a minute?”  
  
“Of course,” Radek said, and he looked as shocked as Evan felt, but Evan had a job to do. He turned away for some semblance of privacy while he made the call.  
  
“John’s mother is dead?” Rodney asked.  
  
Teyla said, “I thought you told him.”  
  
“She died when we were in high school,” Jennifer said weakly. “It was why John quit the band.”  
  
“Am I the only one who didn’t know this whole time?” Rodney sounded faint.  
  
“Everyone at school knew,” Ronon snapped.  
  
“There is much you have not known for a long time.” Teyla sounded only mildly less impatient than Ronon.  
  
“Everyone,” Radek said, “take ten minutes.”  
  
Evan had a feeling that it would take more than ten minutes to recover from what had just happened.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Kicking My Heels by Tyler Hilton.
> 
> Song credit: Hurt by Nine Inch Nails/Johnny Cash


End file.
